7 Cool Uses of 3D Printing in Medicine

By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer |
February 4, 2013 06:28pm ET

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Printing organs?

Printers that spit out three-dimensional human cells and even organs, including the heart and liver, may seem like science fiction. But real scientists are taking real cracks at such a reality. Here are seven cool uses of such printing that could revolutionize medicine.

Printing human embryonic stem cells

Printing human embryonic stem cells

Stem cells, those magical cells that can develop into many different kinds of tissue in the body, can now be printed, at least in the lab. In a study published Feb. 5, 2013, in the journal Science, researchers from the University of Edinburgh describe a valve-based cell printer that spits out living human embryonic stem cells. The cells could be used to create tissue for testing drugs or growing replacement organs, the scientists report.

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Printing blood vessels & heart tissue

Photo Credit: Fraunhofer IGB

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Printing blood vessels & heart tissue

Printing some tissue types is already a reality. Gabor Forgacs from the University of Missouri in Columbia and colleagues printed blood vessels and sheets of cardiac tissue that "beat" like a real heart. The work was published in March 2008 in the journal Tissue Engineering. Forgacs and others started a company called Organovo to bring these products to market.

A group at the German Fraunhofer Institute has also created blood vessels, by printing artificial biological molecules with a 3D inkjet printer and zapping them into shape with a laser.

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Printing skin

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Printing skin

The last 25 years have seen great advances in creating tissue-engineered skin, which could be used to replace skin damaged from burns, skin diseases and other causes. Recently, scientists have added 3D printed skin to their repertoire. Lothar Koch of the Laser Center Hannover in Germany and colleagues laser-printed skin cells, as reported September 2010 in the journal Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods.

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Patching a broken heart

Tanya was a staff writer for Live Science from 2013 to 2015, covering a wide array of topics, ranging from neuroscience to robotics to strange/cute animals. She received a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from Brown University. She has previously written for Science News, Wired, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, the radio show Big Picture Science and other places. Tanya has lived on a tropical island, witnessed volcanic eruptions and flown in zero gravity (without losing her lunch!). To find out what her latest project is, you can visit her website.